39% of people ‘not on track to afford even a minimum lifestyle when they retire’ | ITV News

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-05-06/39-of-people-not-on-track-to-afford-even-a-minimum-lifestyle-when-they-retire

by ThatchersDirtyTaint

34 comments

  2. Kinda makes me wonder if we’ll start seeing destitute pensioners commit crimes just so they’ll receive the basics in prison, just like in Japan.

  3. All percentages no absolute pension pot figures? Clickbaity much?

  4. almost as if, all these parties keep selling is hate and distributed idealism. Rather than hope and helping each other.

  5. This is why the idea of ditching the state pension, or cutting it down, will not help the poorest. There won’t be enough salary put in the pot to contribute to private pensions, especially those trapped in and near minimum wage jobs.

  6. And Rachael reeves wants to disadvantage DC pensions by forcing larger percentages to be invested in the UK, this will lower returns, switch off more from investing.

    Great how someone in a fully funded DB pension wants to punch , typical

  7. I really feel like we need to be more aware of pension planning as a society.

    Not ‘they need to teach it in schools’ because schools have enough to do and teenagers don’t care enough to listen. But, maybe we need to start building in some adult education sessions that you get invited to at certain points in your life.
    You’re 18 now, this is how voting works. You’re 20 now, just incase you haven’t worked it out, this is how taxes work. You’re 25 now, you have probably settled into your first career, here’s how to start saving properly. You’re a parent, here is a course of parenting lessons. You’re 30, this is how pensions work and why you need to start putting money away now, if you haven’t already. You’re 40 and have maxed out career number one, here’s how you change to something new without going bankrupt. You have retired, here’s how to stay active and not get cabin fever.

    We can’t expect everyone to just ‘get it’. Some people need more help to ‘get’ these life skills and if we aren’t providing that at different points then we are failing as a society.

  8. A flawlessly executed suicide at 50 is my plan. Fuck it.

  9. Doesn’t matter how shit you pension is when you’re not able to retire til you have one foot in the grave anyway. 🤷‍♂️

  10. We have a real problem with pension education in this country (I’m sure it’s similar to an extent across Europe).

    I get the impression that there are far too many people in this country who think that their statutory minimum employer contribution, on their £20k-30k salary will be enough for a decent retirement.

  11. Take all the money you give to Israel and put it into a retirement fund for British people. 

    Sorry that’s a dumb idea 

  12. I read this and then I think – I’ve got like 30+ years until I could potentially retire – during which time I need to be paying into a pension the whole way through – at what point might AI put me out of a job and when there’s mass unemployment how the hell am I going to support myself then, let alone during “retirement” whatever that looks like.

  13. Too many people thinking their 5% + 5% employer contributions are going to give them a suitable pension when they’re old. Nope, it’s going to leave you poor.

  14. This is not a story.

    39% of people have negligible private pensions pots. This has almost always, and will always be the case; that is why any civilised country develops a social insurance system, ie the state pension.

    The state pensions provides 30% and smidgen of median incomes at the moment. A couple will receive 60% of median income. Given around 30% (too high, but reality) of take home salary is given to rent for the median person, that means assuming the couple retires with a home, there is no material difference transitioning from 1 person working household at median wage with salary taxes, to 2 retirees. This is a phenomenal reality, we should be proud of, it’s astonishing we are such a prosperous society we can pretty much afford this at least for the present, and with minimal adjustment we can sustain this indefinitely(like a tiny bit of industrial policy).

    This is an ad for a private pensions company, trying to generate revenue for itself, by sewing discord and dissatisfaction in public. This is a malevolent act.

  16. Pension contributions should be compulsory without financial advice, and minimum contributions should be higher. Default funds should also be higher risk. Those who choose not to save enough will be dependent on everyone else

  17. Its ridiculous, I don’t pay a small amount into my workplace pension and even mine says not much above minimum.

    £192 from me per month
    £180 from employer per month

    If you include SP, that’s about 300k after a lump sum if taken.

    I could do with using £192 per month now, but i also need it then. It’s a fair bit to lose out per month and it isn’t a huge amount at the end at 68

    £192 is way more than some pay In at my work place, some don’t do it at all i worry for them. Then you’ve got people who pay way more in somewhere, when I look reddit seems to be full of people who’s employer matches up to like 15%

  18. Well yea, because every policy just forces the younger generations to pay for the older ones. Eventually it catches up to you.

  19. It’s still scandalous to me how low the minimum employer contribution is for auto enrolment.

    Because of the deliberately misleading “qualifying earnings”, someone on full time minimum wage might only get a contribution of 2.1% of their gross salary.

    No shock that anyone in that situation won’t be saving enough.

  20. I fully expect to be dead before I get a chance to retire anyway.

  21. Meh, if I don’t die of natural causes by 60, I’ll do it myself.

    I can barely afford to live now, spend all my free time going for walks as I have no money for fancy date nights etc, have my £1 coffee from cafe nero a week as a treat.

    Those suggesting “education” and “just get a private pension” have no clue how most people live in this country. We can’t be any poorer today to still be poor in the future as we physically can’t as we’ve hit the breadline as it is. In a lot of cases, we’re past it, food or heat is a very real thing.

    For example, southern water had a 47% increase as of April, I’m now paying £87 for water, and that’s with me taking 5 minute showers (while turning the water off during scrubbing) and making sure my fiancée pees first so we only flush once.

  22. The magic money tree came out for furlough when COVID hit though didn’t it. The magic money tree is back out again for *illegal* immigrants from boats.

  23. I really think we are going to look back on this period 100 years from now as an era of endemic failure of governance. Government after government has failed to rectify the issues plaguing the country. They are not going to look good in the history books

  24. The model of retirement assumes homeownership, since it’s the same system we have had since the 1970s. If you still have to pay housing costs, you cannot afford to retire in 95% of cases, and this issue will only get worse

  25. And this is with current pensioner support, which realistically is more than we can afford to offer as the population continues to age, especially if we reduce immigration. It’s 100% going to become normal again for old people to move in with their kids.

  26. Yeah no shit. Between housing market being treated like an investment scheme and diverting growth into the pockets of fewer and fewer people isnt it obvious that a massive swathe of the population won’t have savings.

    Minimum wage just doesn’t cover living expenses anymore so how the hell is anyone saving for a pension.

    Meanwhile if you do manage to get wealthy it’s just non stop to the stars. Stupid. Redistribute or face the alternative. Massive numbers of people with nothing left to lose. Of course I suppose we could always just manipulate those people into hating the guy next to them by telling them they have an extra crumb they don’t deserve.

  27. I don’t think this is so surprising, but there are a lot of people who start their pension planning seriously later in life eg 50+, where you can still stack up something meaningful with 10 years of focused tax free contributions. So I think if it was looked at by age cohort over time it would be interesting. A lot of young people think they will die or have nothing to live for so don’t bother with it, but when those same people have kids and start to think seriously about what their 60s, 70s and 80s might look like they can start putting in.

    In a lot of situations if you haven’t saved for your retirement then your kids will have to sacrifice their own family life to afford to put you up. 

    You don’t need a *lot* in retirement, just enough, and it’s pretty normal to cut your cloth to what you can afford. I think we need to encourage people to not stick their head in the sand however, something small is better than nothing and there’s no guarantees pension credit and housing benefits will remain as (relatively) generous as they are today. 

  28. This is based on the bullshit “retirement living standards”, and includes such things as giving away thousands per year. Its just a shitty advert for the pensions industry

    Single/Couple (K)

    Min £14.4/£24.4
    Moderate £31.3/43.1
    Comfortable £43.1/£59

    Why do I need £14.4K in retirement when I don’t spend that much now?

  29. It’s hard to see how. Triple locked pensions is already out £12k a year or £1k a month. That’s without saving a penny. The triple lock is designed to always beat inflation & wages over time so will be significantly increasing in value over the long term. Particularly for a couple that’s £2k a month starting.

    Add in some even modest savings, the removal of commuting costs, children costs and many will have more in retirement than they do now.

    ….

    Unless they suggesting what all millennials know deep in their heart and bones… that the triple locked will be scrapped when it’s their turn to retire and that we need to simultaneously pay for this lots retirement and save for our own.

  30. I’m quite impressed with many of the reactions here. Largely that auto-enrolment pay-and-forget isn’t enough.

    The messaging is always the same:

    – start early 
    – compounding is exponential 
    – stock markets go up and down so there’s no promises
    – over the long term you will be better off 
    – whatever you put in, your employer puts in the same 
    – but it’s capped so it’s up to you if you want to pay more 
    – the maths is too hard to explain because inflation, compounding, your change in wages over your career and how the stock market performs

    But no one mentions that working 40 years on minimum wage with auto-enrolment gets you the utilities, deodorant and ham sandwich to last a week.

    If you dare have rent or mortgage left to pay you’re screwed. Even if you don’t running your car isn’t free.

    To solve the equation we need to work backwards. When I retire I want to have 75% of what minimum wage looks like? How much do I need to add to my pension every month. For a pessimistic, average and optimistic estimate.

  31. I have friends say they have ‘no money’ repeatedly ordering Deliveroo.

    So it’s as much to do with a bleak situation as poor money management.

  32. My pension fund apparently managed to lose value last year, so it’s not exactly a good incentive to pay into it if it’s not only not keeping up with inflation but actually straight up worse than me just putting the money in a high interest savings account (or buying property).

  33. This shift towards having to contribute to your own pot rather than the older style work pensions is going to make a difference here for many vs older generation. Its shifts he responsibility much more onto individuals to plan for retirement, who wont just get an amount until they die. If you now run out of moeny as you didnt save enough, whatever enough is, your screwed. The state pension isnt, and shouldnt be enough to live off – it should be a top up. We are going to see so many people simply run out of money.

  34. We are lambs to the slaughterhouse sadly. Wutht he obsession of foreign investment and now enhancing growth from within this country for so many years, we are truly struggling to be a self-sufficient country.

    It angers me when you see the likes of Farage that ruined the country first step with Brexit and now he’s peddling more BS so that his bankrollers can roll up.

    NHS goes we are truly fucked and can’t afford it. And yet we do sweet fuck all about it.

    It’s all our fault at this point – we are all responsible. We need to do more but are too scared to go that direct.

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